WARGAME CONSTRUCTION SET from S. S. I. reviewed by Al Adams Construction sets for building your own pinball games. Construction sets for making your own graphic or text adventures. A program for designing your very own machine language game. Even one for building race tracks and the vehicles to place on them. And now, a new entry into the do-it-yourself field: the WARGAME CONSTRUCTION SET (WCS). There are many wargames on the software shelves, and it is apparent to all that S.S.I. practically runs that end of the market. So it was just a matter of time before they decided to let us (the users) in on their secrets for creating exciting battles of our very own. And this they have done VERY WELL... Using WCS is extremely simple. The documentation is well written, and a step-by-step procedure for making up your own fantasy adventure takes you through it easily and adequately. That is right, I said FANTASY game. WCS has the capability of designing just about ANY type of game; limits being only your imagination. BOOTING UP ---------- WCS consists of 2 disks: disk 1 contains the Editor on side A, and the Game Disk on side B. Disk 2 is a scenerio disk. The procedure is simple: load the Editor, design your own game, save it, then boot the Game Disk and load in your "creation". Or you may play one of the 8 pre-made games on the Scenerio Disk, as described below. DESIGNING THE MAP ----------------- There is a scenerio disk included with the program. It contains 8 premade scenerios; (5) one player and (3) two player games. This disk is copyable, so you may want to make a duplicate of it and use it to practice on. You can opt to edit one of these, or build your own by starting from scratch. The choice is yours. Many items are available to you for your MAP: 1) Size. The playing area can be in size anywhere from 1-57 squares across by 1-70 squares up and down. Because of this tremendous size, since the screen shows only a partial area at any one time, scrolling is possible by pushing the joystick to the area you wish to view. You place a border around the area you wish to use. No unit may leave this "wall". 2) Roads. There are 10 different types to select from: 3 horizontal, 2 vertical, 1 crossroad and 4 types of curves: top to right, top to left, bottom to right and bottom to left. To simulate a rising vertical left to right road just string together numerous right to bottom and top to left pieces. As you can see, you have a lot of versatility at your fingertips. 3) Rivers. There are 10 different icons to choose from: 2 upper banks, 1 lower bank, 1 right bank and 1 left bank. Four types of river bends allow you to construct turns: upper left, upper right, lower left, and lower right. There is also a full river icon for straight runs. In addition, a horizontal and a vertical bridge is included for use when a road meets a river. And for a truly realistic scenario, use 1 of 2 the interchangeable blown bridges available. 4) Hilltops. There is 1 hilltop icon. It can be used to represent either a single knoll or the slope at the edge of a large hill. 5) Crests. One is to provide a continuous area of ground rough, or to represent singular features (like entrenchments). The other can be used for crests in a continuing line. 6) Buildings. Seven assorted shapes and sizes can be used interchangeably, or placed next to each other to represent one very large building. Also, there is an objective square which can be used to "enhance" a game strategy. A player receives 1 point for each turn one of his units occupies an objective. 7) Woods. There are 2 main woods centers for starting a forest, plus numerous tops, bottoms, and edges. A nicely added feature is "auto- edging". This allows the computer to do all the hard tedious work of touching up your forest's edge. You place a main woods icon anywhere on the map and allow the computer take over from there. Just be sure not to place one of the woods centers too close to another type of icon, such as a road, building, etc., otherwise it will be wiped out. Auto- edging adds the bottoms, tops, and sides that you would otherwise have to do. In addition to the main woods, there are single tree icons. 8) Mines. You have 3 mines to work with. One is a hidden mine for use in clear terrain, one represents visible mines or traps, and one is a road segment designated for road mines. UNITS ----- Friendly Units... are units NOT controlled by the computer. Units aren't necessarily just characters, but can also include trucks, airplanes, boats, tanks, machine guns, trajectories, helicopters, etc. Units are referred to by their unit #, which in this case can be anywhere between 1 and 31. So you can have up to 31 friendly units at your disposal. Characteristics of a unit which you can define are: * Firepower * Range * Fire Type * Unit Type * Defense * AT Defense * Assault * AT Capability * Movement * Strength * Dig In The following units are available to Friendly Units ONLY. They can be set to transport other units: * Trucks * Helicopters * Boats * Transport Another feature added is Arrival Time. You can therefore have replacement troops coming in at a different turn, if you so desire. Also, after designing say unit #1, you can make an exact duplicate instantly to be unit #2 or unit #18, etc. No need to re-enter everything again. Once all this is done, you are left with one more choice: selecting an icon to represent a particular unit. There are PLENTY to choose from. Enemy Units...are computer-controlled units. These, too, are numbered 1-31. Their characteristics are identical to friendly forces, except that Dig In and Transport are omitted, and Agression is added. This number can be set from 0-7, with 0 meaning the unit will not move, but hold its territory at all costs, and 7 lets the unit counterattack. Numbers in-between allow the enemy to hassle your troops. DEPLOY UNITS ------------ This mode allows you to set up both friendly and enemy units anywhere on the map that you desire. Keep in mind, though, that your units have a tendency to move from south to north, and the enemy from north to south. When placing the enemy units on the map, you will have to set them down in 3 different places. This allows for a random appearance, a necessity for one player games, since you would not know just exactly where they are going to appear. If you prefer to have them stay where you first placed them (as in a two player game), just place the icon down and press the button 3 times in succession. There are 4 types of Scale modes available: * Tactical (approximately 20 to 100 meters across each square). * Tactical/Operational (from 100 to 500 meters across). * Operational (from 500 meters to 1 or 2 kilometers across). * Strategic (1 to 2 kilometers across on up to 10 or even more). You are now set to save the game for later play. You have an option to print the map out (in ASCII format) for reference, especially if you made a very large-scale type map. True to SSI's nature, they designed Wargame Construction Set to be as realistic as possible, from movement costs for entering dense foliage to recovering form wounds. If you have played their previous games like "NAM", "FIELD OF FIRE", etc, you will notice a likeness between them and your personally designed game. As a matter of fact, you can actually make a replica of those with WCS, and go one better with the addition of boats and helicopters! All in all, I HIGHLY recommend WCS for all avid wargame fans. And to novices, it is an excellent program for getting started in this type of game (what can be better than starting out from the ground floor up?). Hats off to S.S.I. for a truly remarkable program. Never has designing a game been easier. Al Adams